Dialogue

Against Studio-X
FROM ANONYMOUS:
I was eager to read your article “X Marks the Spots” (by Ian Volner, February 2012, p. 38). However, where most people may be excited to see something “experimental,” I am rather dubious. Regrettably, aside from those passages providing interesting insight into the collaborative design charrettes with regional satellite schools, the article did not talk about what specific problems the students were aiming to solve. Furthermore, I find it disingenuous to pair the claim that Studio-X has “broadened students’ understanding of how to think as architects” with the images you presented. If people are to understand the progress of architecture and architectural education, make them better understand the problems at hand; don’t show them a pile of cooked spaghetti in the shape of a building.

FROM DANIEL MORALES:
Another example of how our architecture schools are failing their students and our built environment. Not that any of this junk will ever be built, but schools are for disseminating the how-to of any given profession. In this phony, avant-garde paradigm, the student is assumed to be constrained by architectural convention and in need of emancipation. The exact opposite is true. They don’t understand architectural conventions; that’s why they enrolled, presumably. Instead, what they learn is to be cynical about a profession they should sincerely love.

In Praise of Peter Bohlin
FROM SAMUEL S.:
This is an amazing house by Peter Bohlin, one of the best architects out there (“Living on the Edge,” by Mark Lamster, February 2012, p. 58). But I disagree with the assertion that the building “asks you to look not at itself, but at its surroundings.” I can see the easy Glass House comparison—but unlike that building, Bohlin’s house is appealing from both outside-in and inside-out. It is much better architecture: warm, rustic, fitted to the land, and built to be lived with.

CORRECTIONS
Our February 2012 cover story (“X Marks the Spots,” by Ian Volner, p. 38) contained two errors in captions. On p. 40, a photo of the New York office was mislabeled as Studio-X Beijing. And an image on p. 45 was credited to the wrong student. In fact, it was conceived by Dalal Al Sayer, Darys Avila, HyoYoun Kwon, and Sylvia Ng.